Summer sun

Well well, what have we here?
I have been looking at different blogging platforms, why? Goodness knows, maybe I have nothing better to do since this heat has descended and flattened me these last few days!
Oh how quickly I get bored, stuck indoors as my skin just won't allow the suns rays any where near it without coming out in ghastly blotches that itch like mad things and make me feel like I am about to burst into flames.
Add to that the rise in temperature and my bodies inability to regulate its own internal thermometer and you will understand why a few days of this beautiful summer weather renders me a hermit who can do little but sit in her sodden clothing and try not to bite the heads off of friends and family who coo over the 'lovely hot weather' and relate tales of days out in the 'glorious sunshine'
Have I always suffered like this you ask?
Or maybe you don't but let's pretend you have otherwise this blog will be finished before its got started wont it?
I have given that quite a bit of thought recently, well let's face it I haven't had much else I have been able to do have I?
Yes I have always suffered from the suns harmful rays, I can remember as a child being covered up a lot of the time, although I don't remember the sun being as hot or as harmful as it appears to be now, is that because as children we are hardier? Or has the weather really changed so much?
Or maybe it's because as a child the responsible adults were the ones who made sure I was protected from it and so it didn't become such an issue until it was my own responsibility.
I do remember one summer when I must of been about 8 or 9 when my grandparents took me and my cousin Sharon on holiday for a week to Broadstairs, oh I have some brilliant memories of that week as I only normally saw these grandparents once a year at Christmas and so it was quite exciting to be spending a week with them.
I remember the fun figure that was my nan that week, she never failed to have Sharon and I in fits of laughter as she behaved in a way we just never expected. One day Sharon and I had brought one of those plates of breakfast made out of rock, you remember them? An egg, bacon and a sausage all made from the hardest rock. Well being kids we decided on a midnight feast and there we were trying to break the rock sausage to share it when in walked nan, both of us expected to be in trouble but she did no more but walked over to Sharon's bed, took the sausage from her, broke It in two, handed them back and without a word turned and walked back out.
The other reason both myself and Sharon remember that week was I got horribly burnt by the sun, it's the first memory I have of its negative effect on me and how serious it could be as a huge blister appeared on each shoulder and grew and grew until grandad had no option but to put his medical hat on and gently burst them both, I spent the next few days with bandages wrapped around my chest and across my shoulders and grandad was referred to as Doctor Dick ( yes his name was Richard) for the rest of the week. It must have had an impact on both me and Sharon as we both remember it well.
So I guess I already knew my skin was ultra sensitive before the psoriasis showed its ugly face. Once I had that it seemed anything that touched my skin would or could aggravate it and this included the suns rays. A day outside would produce interesting pink patterns on any exposed skin,a couple of days would turn those patches into itchy red painful lumps that eventually had me taking myself to the GP....an allergy to the suns rays he said, oh great how do you stay out of the sun?
Then because I am such a lucky lady I started to overheat too, if the temperature rose even slightly off I would go, I could feel the heat creeping over me and I would slowly start to melt.
So ok, I am a woman of a certain age and at first it was put down to the dreaded change, ok I thought, i can handle this, hot flushes that lasted all day, sweating that could have eased the water shortage, but after two years, then three I couldn't handle it and neither was my husband handling it very well. The windows open in December, the need to find a cool spot at all times of the day and night, the bedclothes that I pushed onto him every night meant that he was going through my heat problem almost as much as I was.
By year four it wasn't even remotely funny any more and my complaining to the GP became less easy for her to ignore. Unfortunately because of my auto immune disease there are so many things that I can't have and the one thing that may have helped me, HRT was something they couldn't give me so it seemed to be that I would just have to learn to cope with it.
It has been suggested that the over heating problems may well be connected to my other medical problems but no one seems to know for sure and so it seems no one quite knows what to do to help, I think they are all just hoping it will stop in time. Meanwhile I am unable to function when it is hot, my joints swell more and my energy deserts me, the smallest tasks feel like mountains to be climbed.
And so I say to all you sun seekers and enjoyers of this lovely summer weather good for you, enjoy it, I certainly don't begrudge you the warm months and the sunshine but please don't be offended when I say roll on winter, the cooler weather, the darker weather and yes even the rain as they are more my type of thing these days. *sigh* only 211 days to Christmas!


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